Month: October 2012

1017: An Uneventful Halloween

I actually quite like Halloween, barring the whole “locking yourself in the dark to avoid terrifying teenage trick or treaters” thing, which I don’t have to do any more because I don’t live in an area infested with pikey scumbags. (Also, it was absolutely chucking it down with hail earlier, so any trick or treaters who actually braved the elements deserve a fucking medal, not some pathetic “fun size” chocolate. “Fun size”. What the fuck is “fun” about chocolate that is smaller than it is supposed to be anyway? Fuck off, pathetic chocolate. Gosh, I’m in a bad mood tonight. I apologise, and will take a deep breath after I close these parentheses.)

Ahem. Anyway. Yes. I actually quite like Halloween, though this is perhaps more due to my love of dressing up than the actual spooky day itself. Although there is a certain perverse pleasure in the amount you can get away with on Halloween. I won’t get into the whole “sexy costumes” thing now, but, well, no-one really bats an eyelid (no pun intended) if you’re dressed like a complete loon.

One of my favourite Halloweens was back when I was at university. It was around the time of Scream and Scary Movie, so the “black robe with mask” look was “in”. I participated, and went along on a night out with my friends dressed in full Scream regalia. It was an interesting experience, because beneath all the flowing robes and the mask that completely obscured my identity, I felt pretty confident for once, even going so far as to share a few Scary Movie– (and Budweiser-) -inspired “WAZAAAAAP”s with complete strangers. So that was fun. (Drinking through that mask was impossible, though, which kind of ruined the illusion somewhat.

I haven’t had the opportunity for a good Halloween fancy dress kind of situation for a long time now, though. When you’re in your early 30s and two hours away from all your friends, no-one seems to invite you to parties any more. (Not that I’m particularly fun at parties anyway, but still. Or perhaps it might just be that no-one’s actually throwing any parties.) I’m not really complaining — parties are rife with all that enforced socialisation, and if you feel like you want to leave after half an hour, everyone gives you weird looks, regardless of how awesome your costume was. Clearly what I need to do is to throw my own Halloween party and invite only people I actually like and who all know each other. That way the entire hideous situation can hopefully be avoided for everyone. And we can concentrate on doing something like playing board games instead.

Regrettably, it’s a tad late to organise that now, but perhaps next year. I propose an evening of horror-themed entertainment — perhaps an episode or two of something like Haiyore! Nyaruko-san early in the evening to get everyone warmed up, then some light horror-themed games (Chez Cthulhu, Lord of the Fries and Last Night on Earth spring to mind) followed up by a lengthy game of something like Arkham Horror into the wee small hours. With everyone in costume.

That sounds fun, right? It sounds fun to me. Sadly, for this year, I will have to content myself with the complete non-event that was Halloween in Chippenham, in which I spent most of the evening being by turns grumpy at the fact my brand new laptop apparently has a faulty battery (BOO to you, Novatech!) and quite depressed at the news that a games journalism freelancer killed himself earlier. He wasn’t someone I knew personally, but it’s still sad news to hear. But that’s a discussion for another day, I feel.

On a brighter note, tomorrow is November, and if you’ll recall my post from a few days ago that means a month of fiction here on this site. The stickmen will be taking a short hiatus while I aim to churn out a couple of thousand words a day, but they’ll be back at the start of December. (Holy crap, December. Where did this year go?)

I am rambling. So I will cut that short. Hope you had a good Halloween.

1016: A Few More Aselia Thoughts

I finished my first playthrough of Aselia the Eternal this evening. Clocking in at about 54 hours, this $30 title is certainly good value for money in terms of its dollars-to-hours ratio.

It’s also a very, very good game, though one that will undoubtedly not be to everyone’s taste. Simply put, if you enjoy the narrative being the focus of a game rather than its gameplay, you will dig Aselia the Eternal. If you’re the sort of person who skips cutscenes even if you haven’t seen them before, you will not like Aselia the Eternal.

This is not to say that Aselia the Eternal is as “gameplay-free” as most other visual novels, however — in fact, it plays host to an excellent strategy-RPG component as well as its decision-based visual novel aspect — but you have to be willing and able to deal with the fact that the game will frequently break without warning in mid-“mission” for a considerable amount of plot exposition. I love that the game does this, as it gives a nice feeling of “coherence” to the experience rather than sharply demarcating where “plot” and “game” are. Equally, it will doubtless annoy some others. If it sounds like it might annoy you, you will probably not appreciate Aselia the Eternal.

There are eight endings to the game. I have now seen one of them. After the break, some spoileriffic thoughts on the whole playthrough.

MAHOOSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD, in case that wasn’t already clear.

Continue reading “1016: A Few More Aselia Thoughts” →

1015: JARNAWRITINGLIZMZ

The discussion surrounding the recent “Games Journalists Might Be Corrupt” debacle continues, it seems, with a recent piece by Ben Kuchera over on the Penny Arcade Report summarising nicely why it’s an issue worth discussing. I don’t really want to get into that conversation again right now because it’s already being researched and reported on by people with more time and resources on their hands than me.

What I do want to talk about, though, is the ancillary discussion which always crops up any time Issues surrounding “games journalism” crops up — that is, a matter of what is “games journalism” and the divide between “journalist”, “blogger” and any other definitions you’d care to give.

I saw an interesting quote earlier today on Twitter. I forget who it was from so I can’t link to it, unfortunately, but it read something like this:

“Don’t get into games journalism because you like games. Get into it because you love writing.”

That’s exactly the reason I enjoy writing about games — because I love writing, as the 1014 posts prior to this will attest. I mean, sure, I love games, too, but I could love games without wanting to write about them, and yet I voluntarily compose thousands of words on the subject every week — here, over at Games Are Evil and for my day job. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it.

There’s something of an air of snobbery surrounding writing about games, though, and it’s all to do with that “J” word. When outlets like Polygon publish a piece like this, you get people expressing genuine surprise that someone has “done some actual games journalism”. For sure, well-researched investigative pieces are very much worthy of note and should be praised — but just as in regular newspapers, they are not the be-all and end-all of writing. In mainstream culture and current affairs, we have plenty of critical and opinion pieces alongside the deep-dive investigative pieces — so why is this sort of thing looked down upon in games writing?

It’s the obsession with that “J” word. “Journalism” carries with it certain expectations — specifically, reporting and investigation, and perhaps uncovering some facts that might not have come to light otherwise. But there’s just as much value in someone composing an in-depth personal response to something they’ve played in detail, or indeed an opinion piece on a pertinent current issue in the industry.

It’s not “one size fits all”, in short, and I think part of the problem in the “writing about games” sector (whatever you want to call it) is that too many outlets are trying to be one size fits all. We see sites like VG247 posting articles on everything from the latest DLC drop for Call of Duty to sales figures via who has got a new job on a magazine — something which the vast majority of gamers who are not involved in the industry probably wouldn’t give a toss about. We have sites like GamesBeat experimenting with a review format that features feedback from a games critic, a business analyst and an academic, and it’s not entirely clear who that’s for.

We need greater focus and less generalisation. The outlets that are good at “real journalism” such as Kuchera’s Penny Arcade Report (and to a lesser extent Polygon) should keep doing what they do because it’s important — and it’d be good to see more outlets focusing on this side of things with properly-trained staff. But at the same time, the sites who are effectively “magazines” as opposed to “newspapers” should keep doing what they’re doing too. Their work is no less valid or important, but their purpose is different — while the “journalistic” outlets’ primary purpose is to inform, the “magazine” outlets’ primary purpose is to entertain. There’s a degree of crossover between both, of course, but I can’t help but feel that focusing on either one or the other rather than ending up doing a half-assed job at both would benefit everyone in the long run.

I actually wrote a piece on this subject a while back regarding the ever-controversial Kotaku, a site which consistently draws heat for its seemingly “irrelevant” articles and often irreverent attitude. I still stand by what I say in that post — if Kotaku was more honest and open about its target audience (18-30 year old men) and tailored its content accordingly, then I feel it would be a better publication as a result.

It’s also what I’m trying to do over at Games Are Evil with a limited team and resources. We’re not under any illusions about being the first to report on anything or the most timely with our coverage, but in acknowledging that fact and taking a more “magazine-like” approach — weekly, focused columns punctuated by brief news snippets on subjects that are a little “off the beaten track” and regular features such as our daily Song of the Day — I feel we’re building a better, more distinctive publication rather than yet another “me too” blog, and one that I’m actually pretty proud of so far.

Anyway. The “games journalism is broken” discussion will probably continue in perpetuity, particularly given recent events. I do know one thing, though, and that’s that I am really glad I am not Lauren Wainwright right now.

1014: Aselia the Exceedingly Lengthy but Still Well Worth Playing

Back in early October, I did an initial blog on my impressions regaring a Japanese-developed visual novel known as Aselia the Eternal. Since that time, I’ve written two columns on the subject for Games Are Evil — one about the game itself, the other about how it creates a convincing, coherent-feeling game world mostly through words — and there’s still a huge amount more to say about it. So I’ll brain-dump it all here and you can sift through at your leisure.

The first thing I want to say is that it’s a pity more people won’t play this. I can shout its name from the rooftops all I like, but I know for a fact that most of you reading this are not even considering picking it up and trying it out. This is the one failing of the video games medium becoming so broad and wide-ranging in recent years — no-one has time to play everything, so the vast majority of people concentrate on the recognisable names, the new releases, the triple-A blockbusters and the “indie darlings” of the moment, leaving titles like Aselia to — relatively speaking — flounder. Take a look at this great article by Rowan Kaiser, for example, in which he suggests a variety of games to give a gaming newbie a “crash course” in what the medium is all about. Everything on that list is, I’d argue, mainstream or at least “well-known”, and yes, I include titles like Journey and Papo and Yo in that description. They’re all “safe” options — and that’s not a particularly bad thing, especially when trying to introduce someone new to the medium — but a lot of people don’t ever step out of this comfort zone because there’s no real need to.

On the plus side, however, this means that the fans of these particularly niche games are almost infinitely more passionate and willing to discuss them than someone who has completed, say, Assassin’s Creed III. (There are exceptions, of course — I know I follow several people on Twitter who are obsessed with Ezio di whateverhisfullnameis and the overly-complicated lore of the Assassin’s Creed series to an unhealthy degree — but I’d argue the people who care that much are in the relative minority.) And, of course, there’s the fact that titles like Aselia represent “mainstream  PC gaming” in Japan, so if you can actually speak Japanese (I’m working on it… slowly!) you’ll find like-minded people out there.

But anyway. If you have played Aselia the Eternal (or indeed any other visual novels) and want to enthuse about them with me, please feel free to do so at any time.

Now. To business. Indulge me a moment while I explain what it is that makes Aselia the Eternal particularly noteworthy or at least “interesting” to look at.

First of all, a little history. Aselia the Eternal was originally released in 2003 on PC as an 18+ eroge called Eien no Aselia – The Spirit of Eternity Sword. In 2005, it was stripped of its erotic content and released on PlayStation 2 as Eien no Aselia – Kono Daichi no Hate De (Aselia the Eternal: At the Ends of this Earth). Rather than the excision of the erotic content making it a “gutted” experience, however, the game was rewritten to make it more friendly to a wider audience. This “all-ages” version was later backported to PC in 2010, and translated into English by JAST USA in 2011, leaving us with the version we have today. JAST took the decision to translate the “all-ages” version rather than the 18+ original due to content which would have proven “problematic” to get around the censors — specifically, there are a number of characters who look very young (despite, as with most eroge, character ages not being made explicit anywhere), which makes erotic content involving said characters out of the question to Western audiences; and also, the original carried an “evil path” through the story which featured graphic scenes of violence and sexual assault — also deemed unpalatable to Western players. 

The upshot of all that is that the version of Aselia the Eternal you can buy legally today is not compromised in any way from the vision of its writers, but equally it does not feature any content that you might not want anyone viewing over your shoulder. In other words, this is not a hentai game; rather, it is simply a Japanese visual novel/strategy game/RPG type thing sans bonking.

It’s the peculiar blend of genres in its gameplay that makes Aselia the Eternal an interesting one, though. Initially appearing to be a fairly conventional visual novel involving a cast of high school students, a pair of (foster) siblings with a mildly questionable relationship and the occasional innocuous-seeming choice that you just know will have surprisingly far-reaching ramifications, the game gets truly interesting after about 5-6 hours of pure exposition — 5-6 hours that will determine whether or not you’re in it for the long haul. The game’s player-protagonist Yuuto as well as several other characters get spirited away to a mysterious fantasy world, and a battle for survival begins. From this point on, you’ll be splitting your time between the number-crunching of a strategy RPG and the plot-heavy relationship manipulation of a visual novel. The two aren’t necessarily clearly demarcated, either — the game frequently breaks in mid-mission for 30-60 minutes of plot advancement — but this actually works in the game’s favour as it tries to tell its story, and stops story feeling like a “reward” and instead like everything you do is part of the ongoing narrative.

It helps, of course, that the actual gameplay in the strategic side of things is extremely solid. Here’s how it works.

As you progress through the game, you gain control of a wide variety of female “spirits” of different colours, as well as the protagonist. Differently-coloured spirits have different specialisms — blue spirits are good at direct attacks, for example, while green spirits tend to have higher HP and defense. Red spirits, meanwhile, are good at magic, while black spirits are a bit of a “jack of all trades, master of none” class, with good HP and defense, decent attack power and some useful enemy-crippling abilities.

Your forces are split into four “squads” of up to three units each. The unit in the first position of the squad is the Attacker, the second is the Defender and the third is the Supporter. The Attacker’s job is to… well, attack… the Defender’s job is to soak up damage and prevent critical hits, and the Supporter’s job usually involves casting spells of some description, which might be direct attacks, buffs or debuffs. Each unit has up to three equipped skills for each of the three different squad positions, for a total of nine skills at any one time. I say “at any one time” because as they level up, abilities get overwritten — sometimes this is your choice, other times, “Limited Skills” mean that you must overwrite a previous level of a skill when you earn a new one. Only one skill from each category may be “set” at once — this is the one which will be used in battle — and each skill only has a limited number of uses before the unit needs to return to a friendly town to rest and recharge.

You move around the “campaign map” via preset pathways, one “space” per turn. If you move onto an enemy, you attack them. Before the battle resolves itself, you can see the lineup of the enemy squad (including HP and abilities), and you then have the opportunity to rearrange your squad members and set the abilities you would like them to use in the upcoming battle — this is an immensely important step that can mean the difference between life and death — and then it’s into combat.

Battle unfolds in several phases. First of all, the attacking side’s Supporter casts an “Attack Support” spell if it has one set — these include buffs or some healing spells. Then the other side gets to do the same. Then the attacking side’s Attacker gets to make an attack, which is usually intercepted by the Defender if there is one, then the Supporter, then the Attacker finally. Certain skills allow units to target specific units other than the Defender — this can be particularly useful if the Supporter has a nasty spell ready, but not many HP left.

Following the first attack, the Supporter gets to cast a Divine Magic spell if they didn’t already case an Attack Support spell. These are mostly offensive in nature. Then the defending side gets to attack, then Divine Magic. This then repeats until all the units involved in the battle have expended the number of “actions” for the skills they have set. Certain skills may be used more than once per battle, and this can be used to your advantage — if, for example, the enemy Defender can only use their damage reduction skill once per battle and you have a powerful attack that can be used twice, that second attack will connect and do “critical” damage.

There’s an added twist with the Attack Support and Divine Magic spells — blue spirits have the special “Ice Banisher” ability when in the Supporter role, which can interrupt certain spells. Naturally, there’s a trade-off — blue spirits are also the strongest Attackers, so having one in the Supporter slot means that they’re not doing damage, but making effective use of Ice Banisher is essential to survival as the enemy gains access to stronger spells.

It’s a system that initially appears rather complex and confusing, but becomes second nature after no time. It’s actually a very elegant system that forces you to think carefully about which characters would be most useful in dealing with the situation in front of you, and requires that you manage your army carefully to ensure they’re strong enough to take on the challenges ahead of them. It also means that there are often a number of ways of getting past seemingly insurmountable challenges — that boss who is giving you grief may hit hard, but he only has two uses of his attack skill before he’s left unable to damage you, so if you can just keep your green spirit alive for two turns, you can then exact bloody revenge at your leisure.

Pleasingly, there’s no grinding in Aselia the Eternal. While you’re wandering the game world, your captured towns are converting their stored “mana” to “ether” at a rate dependent on how many Ether Refinery buildings you’ve constructed. The more towns you have, the more mana in your pool, but mana can’t be used in its raw state — it has to be converted to ether first. Once you have ether, however, this can be spent on constructing new buildings or, most importantly, levelling up spirits and the protagonist. To do this, they must be located in a town which has a Training Facility constructed, and their entire squad must rest while the individual unit trains. You gain access to various different trainers with different specialisms as the story progresses, putting an effective “cap” on your progress as you go through — but sometimes you hear rumours of trainers in far-off locations, and can enlist their services if you send a squad to go and pick them up.

So Aselia the Eternal would be an interesting strategy game even if it didn’t have the plot attached to it. What makes it a remarkable experience, however, is how the plot makes you feel about those units scampering around the world map. Because you get to know all the people in your squads in various story scenes, not just the main characters, you care about them and you don’t want them to die. Letting a unit die means that you’ll never see them again in the story, because there are no revive skills until very late in the game. When you see how many little subplots involving these seemingly “unimportant characters” are weaved into the overall narrative, you’ll very much want to be “that guy” and reload every time someone kicks the bucket. After all, Halion promised you that she’d bake some special treats for you in her shop when the war is over… you can’t let her die, now, can you?

And goodness me. The Feels. Aselia the Eternal has them by the bucketload, particularly when it comes to chapter finales. This is a game that doesn’t hold back on the emotional manipulation at all, and does its very best to make you feel terrible about every virtual life you take. The overarching story is at once both epic in scale and very personal to the protagonist, and the romantic subplots are expertly weaved into the narrative as a whole rather than serving as the sole focus as in some other visual novels.

I have one more chapter of the story to go, and I’m very interested to see how it concludes. Hopefully that will happen sometime this week.

But I feel I should probably stop there, as I’ve wittered on for over two thousand words. I won’t tell you to buy and play Aselia the Eternal because I know that probably 95% of you aren’t going to, but if, on the off-chance, you do, be sure to come and enthuse about it with me sometime.

1013: Heads Up

Thought I’d give those of you who care a heads-up as to my impending plans: for November I will be doing something very similar to what I did last year, which is not participating in NaNoWriMo officially, but still taking the month to write something purely “creative” every day, and hopefully ending up with something at least semi-coherent. Note that because this will be harder work than the bollocks I spout every day for normal posts, the stickmen will be taking a short break while I write it. They’ll be back in December, though.

Last year, the result of my productive november was a project called Wasteland Diaries, which you can read from the start here. This was an interesting experiment, in which I just started writing and “improvised” my way from start to finish. I didn’t plan out where the story was going in advance (and that probably showed) — but in the end I feel that helped a bit with the deliberately confusing, mysterious nature of the whole thing. I specifically wanted the reader to be thrown off a bit by what was going on, and what better way to do that than by not knowing myself what was going to happen next?

I knew that attempting to keep that going for a whole month would be a difficult challenge, though, so gradually I introduced new elements — the other characters, the shifting narrators, the meta-plot — until eventually, by probably about halfway through the whole thing, I had a vague idea of where it was going and where it was going to end up. Perhaps not the best way to write a piece of fiction, but eh. It worked. Kinda. Of course, there were a few points where I remembered that I’d left a “plot hook” back in the first few chapters that I promptly hadn’t resolved at all and now had no idea what to do with, but for the most part… yes. It worked.

This year, I already have an idea ready to go ahead of time. I haven’t planned anything specifically, but I have at least thought about it. What I might do is figure out the beginning, midpoint and ending before I start and then work my way from one to the other over the course of the month. That strikes me like a good idea.

Naturally, I won’t be sharing any details of what it’s all about beforehand — if you want to find out what it is, you’ll have to read for the whole of November. (Or, you know, look back on it afterwards and read it all in one go.) I’m quite excited about the basic idea behind it, though, so hopefully that should come across in my writing.

Decisions to make now, though. Character names? First or third person narrative? How much should I aim to write per day? What word count should I try and end up with? (To date, I’m still not entirely sure how many words a typical novel has in it… and I guess it varies a lot anyway. Also, am I aiming to write a novel? Or just an extended piece of fiction? I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.)

Well, whatever happens, it should be an interesting month if nothing else. Plus I know a few of you out there enjoy my creative writing, so I hope you will like this project.

1012: Indisputable Measure of Quality

I can tell when an iOS app or game is genuinely good — I keep it on my phone after I’ve finished reviewing it.

For my day job, I spend an awful lot of time trawling through iOS games and apps of various descriptions and quality levels. There are some true gems among them, and there is some complete bollocks, too — and not just in gaming. I’ve lost count of the number of utterly pointless and unnecessary mobile-social networks I’ve come across in just the last few weeks, for example, and you’d be surprised how many Instagram clones there are out there.

On the gaming front, I’ve played too many completely shallow card-battle games to count — so many, in fact, that I’ve actually forgotten the name of most of them as they all blend into one another so much — and far too many isometric-perspective citybuilders that have absolutely no strategy whatsoever. I was also very disappointed to discover that the upcoming My Little Pony mobile game from Gameloft will be — you guessed it — an isometric-perspective citybuilder. Fuck.

But the amount of utter garbage on the App Store makes the titles that are actually good worth celebrating. As such, I’d like to present you with a breakdown of everything that is currently installed on my iPhone. I haven’t necessarily played or used some of these recently, but I like to keep them around because they have either been useful/fun in the past, or simply because I feel “attached” to them. Or in some cases, I’ve just forgotten that they’re on there.

Here we go, then. In no particular order… well, all right, in the order they’re in on my disorganised home screen:

  • Google+ — official mobile app for Google’s oft-ridiculed-but-actually-rather-good social network. Beautifully-designed app in my opinion, though said design is a bit divisive.
  • Facebook — official mobile app for the world’s most popular social network. The app may be a bit clunky and festooned with obtrusive “sponsored links”, but it’s finally become a reasonably solid experience.
  • WordPress — official app for the service this blog is hosted on. The app is reasonably good, but limited compared to the Web interface. It also lacks a word count facility, which annoys me more than I thought it would.
  • Skype — not actually sure why I still have this installed. In fact, I’ll delete it right now.
  • imo.im — my instant messaging client of choice. Supports most protocols you’d care to think of, including Skype.
  • Formspring — I haven’t used Formspring for ages but occasionally it’s fun to answer silly questions. The app makes that easy to do on the go.
  • LinkedIn — also not entirely sure why I have this installed, given that I never use LinkedIn. Time to delete!
  • Steam — official mobile app for Valve’s digital storefront and social client. Seems to lack push notifications, but otherwise quite useful to get in touch with friends for whom Steam is a reliable point of contact.
  • Comic Touch — old app that hasn’t been updated for ages, but features some fun, silly camera effects and the ability to add annotations and speech bubbles. Mobile version of the software I use to create the comic strips on this blog.
  • Instagram — still the best pretentious photography app in the world.
  • Snapseed — a genuinely excellent and surprisingly powerful photo manipulation app.
  • Brushes — best paint program for iPhone, bar none.
  • Evernote — probably the most solid “cloud notebook” solution there is, particularly now it is compatible with a bunch of other apps.
  • Bump — I never use this any more, but it carries positive associations of a very dear friend with it, so I’ve kept it around.
  • Air Sharing — handy little Wi-Fi file sharing app, allowing transfer of files between computer and iPhone easily. Also has built-in image viewer, media player and whatnot.
  • iDisk — urgh. FUCK YOU APPLE for removing the most useful thing about MobileMe.
  • Red Laser Classic — occasionally useful for price-checking while you’re out and about, though you inevitably don’t have mobile signal when you’re in a Waterstones.
  • HippoRemote Lite — an excellent, reliable and free virtual trackpad/keyboard that can be used to control computers.
  • Box — I signed up for a Box account when someone tweeted one of those special offer links. I don’t think I’ve used it, but it’s handy to know it’s there if I need it.
  • MotionX-Dice — no longer available, but an excellent virtual (six-sided) dice app.
  • Night Stand — my favourite app that puts a big clock on your screen. Not sure this version is still available.
  • Lloyds TSB — convenient access to mobile banking, though the app itself is a bit shit.
  • Primrose — strange and addictive puzzle game by Jason Rohrer of Passage fame.
  • WordFu — a game you should not start playing on the toilet.
  • Scramble CE — Didn’t realise I still had this installed. Superceded by Scramble with Friends, which I can no longer be bothered to play.
  • Bejeweled Blitz — Still a fine toilet game, even with the increasingly-obtrusive monetization.
  • Spelltower — a brilliant little word puzzle game.
  • Fruit Ninja — probably no introduction needed. Slice fruit, have fun.
  • Tilt to Live — one of the best games iOS has ever seen, and certainly a game with one of the best soundtracks of all time. Known as “Try Not to Die” by my friend Woody, who can never remember the name of it.
  • DoDonPachi Resurrection — spectacular, wonderful bullet hell shooter with an outstanding soundtrack, gorgeous graphics and a touchscreen control scheme that works really well.
  • Mushihimesama Bug Panic — curious top-down action-adventure shooter from the DoDonPachi developers.
  • Groove Coaster — one of the best rhythm games ever.
  • Gridrunner — fantastic new version of one of Jeff Minter’s classic games.

(Jesus. I didn’t realise I had quite so much crap on here. No wonder I never have any space left. Continuing…)

  • RogueTouch — An excellent iOS version of the original Rogue.
  • Sword of Fargoal — Fantastic reimagining of a Commodore 64 roguelike classic.
  • 100 Rogues — Possibly the best roguelike on the App Store. Apart from Sword of Fargoal and Rogue Touch.
  • Frotz — Interpreter for text adventures and interactive fiction. Comes with access to a whole bunch of old and new classics.
  • Various board game adaptations: Catan, Blokus, Carcassonne, Ascension, Bohnanza, Ticket to Ride, Elder Sign
  • Necronomicon Redux — Fun Cthulhu-themed card game.
  • Hard Lines — Geometry Wars meets Snake.
  • Bit.Trip BEAT — Pong with rhythm.
  • Space Invaders: Infinity Gene — Very little to do with the original. But awesome.
  • Shazam — occasionally useful, but one of those apps you inevitably don’t have mobile signal when you actually want to use.
  • Apple Remote — occasionally useful when, say, I want to listen to music from my Mac while I’m on the toilet. Somewhat superceded by the use of iTunes Match.
  • Spotify — it’s Spotify on my phone.
  • Modizer — brilliant chiptune and MOD file player with access to a variety of downloadable selections.
  • Instacast — nifty podcast discovery and subscription app.
  • NanoStudio — portable music production lab. Should probably play with this more than I have.
  • Netflix — it’s Netflix on my phone.
  • Co-Pilot GPS — this satnav app has never steered me wrong.
  • King of Dragon Pass — terrifyingly complex strategy game that I don’t really understand, but would very much like to someday.
  • Starbase Orion — it’s Master of Orion on my phone.
  • Game Dev Story — The only Kairosoft game that’s really consistently held my interest.
  • Cardinal Quest — Actually, this is one of the best roguelikes on the App Store.
  • Pages — Not really sure how practical this is on iPhone, but it’s nice to have it there.
  • MyFitnessPal — useful calorie-tracking app that I should probably start using again sometime.
  • RunKeeper — best run/cycle/walk-tracking app there is.
  • Diptic — got this when it was free, never used it.
  • Zookeeper Battle — see this post.
  • Super Hexagon — the most irritating game in the world.
  • Figure — cool little synth toy thing from the makers of Reason.
  • Any.DO — excellent to-do app.
  • Neon Blitz — surprisingly addictive, mindless little game.
  • Crunchyroll — anime wherever I go!
  • Ayakashi: Ghost Guild — for some reason, I am still playing this and attempting to determine why this has appealed to me where other card-battle games have failed. I think it’s the fact it actually has a story, and is presented pretty well. In-app purchases are far too expensive though.
  • Rune Gems — excellent Shanghai-meets-match-3 puzzler.
  • Rayman Jungle Run — best game on iOS, hands down. I will fight you if you disagree. Unless you cite Tilt to Live as the best game on iOS, in which case I will forgive you.
  • YouTube — everyone bitched about the lack of the built-in iOS YouTube app, but Google struck back with a new one that is infinitely better than the previous crap which had barely been updated since iOS 1.0.
  • MangaCamera — this is awesome fun. Just try it.
  • Skitch — skitchy skitchy skitch!

WHY AM I STILL DOING THIS

oh, thank God, my battery has died. Oh well. I’ll have to leave that there. Anyway. I hope you have found this list helpful, interesting or just, you know, eh. Whatever. I don’t know. I’m tired. Bugger off. *slumps face-first onto keyboard*

1011: Sigh… Another Shitstorm

Boy, it all kicked off earlier. Again.

For those who missed the whole shebang, basically, this is the flow of events over the last two days to the best of my knowledge.

Yesterday:

  • Twitter “debate” erupts over whether or not it was ethical for UK games journalists attending the annual “Games Media Awards” ceremony to be tweeting promotional hashtags in the hope of winning a PS3.
  • Winners of said competition name-checked by several Twitter users.
  • Several of said winners speak up and say they are giving away their PS3s.
  • Eurogamer publishes this article by Robert Florence (now recreated on GAF because the Eurogamer-hosted one has been edited) in which he notes that journalists defending such a competition could be seen as corrupt. He quotes tweets from several public sources (mostly Twitter) in said article.
  • MCV staff writer Lauren Wainwright, who was originally quoted in Florence’s article, posts on Facebook “Yes, I’ve seen it. Yes, it’s slander. No, it’s not being taken lightly.” and quickly makes it clear that she is referring to Florence’s article.

Today:

Most of the salient points surrounding this issue have probably already been addressed far better than I will do in this post, but since this is my personal blog I thought I would give my take on the matter, as something of an “outsider” to the UK games industry. (It’s true; despite living in the UK, pretty much all games/tech journalism work I’ve done in the last few years has been for American outlets — the last UK publication I wrote for was the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, and that was back when the N64 was one of the current-generation consoles.)

I have come to the conclusion, not just as a result of this shitstorm, that I am Not A Fan of the UK games journalism industry.

Actually, that’s not quite true — there are plenty of people in the UK industry with a considerable degree of integrity who sadly toil away in relative obscurity. People like Lewis Denby over at Beefjack, Ashton Raze and Tom Hoggins over at The Telegraph’s games column, and itinerant freelancer Chris Schilling — and scores of others, too, most of whom I follow on Twitter. These are all people that I may not have had the pleasure of actually meeting in most cases (though I met Denby at the Houses of Parliament one day) but whom I have interacted with and have grown to trust the opinions of. I have no issue with these people.

However, what I do have an issue with is the “old boys’ club” that is at the core of the UK games journo industry; a toxic heart beating away and infecting all around it with its bitterness and vitriol. In this inner circle, most people seem to actively hate their job, mocking it at every opportunity and deriding genuinely interesting ventures such as a games journalism introductory session that IGN attempted to host in London a short while back. The apparent priority for a number of these individuals — from what I can tell from their public output, anyway — is getting drunk and taking the piss out of the medium they’re supposed to be representing. “VIDEOGAMES,” they’ll say (and misspell), deriding something that everyone is already aware of and completely ignoring the more interesting things going on in the business.

The focal point of all this vitriol is surely the Games Media Awards, an odious annual event hosted by Intent Media, the parent company of Wainwright’s employer MCV. Now, you might not think that celebrating the achievements of hardworking journalists is a bad thing, and for the record, I don’t either — but for the last two years I have seen nothing but obnoxious behaviour surrounding this event. I don’t know about you, but for a professional industry awards ceremony, I expect a certain level of professionalism, formality and decorum — none of which are readily apparent in the slightest when looking at the GMAs, which are little more than a pissup for journalists organised by PR staff and publishers.

I knew that something was up when the “humorous” Twitter account promoting the event last year was publicly lambasting anyone (including me) who took umbrage with its less-than-professional tone. These suspicions were only confirmed when the sponsors for the event showed up brandishing about a million free condoms and with an army of dwarfs in tow. The event was a complete debacle and many of the journos present did decry the sponsor Grainger Games’ behaviour as abhorrent, to be fair — but equally, there were plenty of “oh man, I was so drunk” stories circulating.

This year, it was a different controversy — specifically, a whole lot of behaviour which Florence quite accurately pointed out could be interpreted as shilling. Journos were getting their photograph taken with the dude from Far Cry 3 and tweeting about some game I’ve never heard of called Defiance, and publicly sharing both on Twitter. Some people quite rightly criticised this, and that’s what kicked off this whole debacle. Specifically, it was Intent Media and various other members of the “inner circle” defending their behaviour that kicked off this whole debacle.

You see, part of the problem with the “inner circle” is that it believes itself superior and immune to criticism. At no point were those who had been “caught in the act” willing to discuss the possibilities that their actions might be misinterpreted, whatever the actual intentions behind them. Wainwright’s “complaint” and possible threat of legal action is just one of many silencing tactics that have been used surrounding this issue, with the others being the old favourite “remember when we just talked about games? Games were fun!” and “get back to work” arguments.

Well, yes, games are fun, and it would be nice to get back to talking about them. But these conversations that we’re having here are important, too. This whole ridiculous situation came about for a reason, after all, and it’s something that the industry should learn from. Specifically, outlets should begin getting their staff better acquainted with media law, and they should also instill in their employees a culture that criticism is not always a negative thing; sometimes it is an opportunity to grow, change and improve.

Will the industry actually learn from this, though? Probably not, sadly. I would, however, like to state for the record that I have never seen this level of ridiculously shameful behaviour from the American games press. Sure, there’s been plenty of public spats — particularly surrounding high-profile figures such as Destructoid’s Jim Sterling and the Polygon crew — but nothing that’s actually left me feeling as ashamed of the industry I’ve worked so hard to be a part of as the last 48 hours have.

I’ll leave you with this excellent piece by Jeff Grubb from back in the early days of Bitmob. I agree with everything my hirsute honey says. And that’s the last I will say on the matter!

1010: Connected Hearts

I finished watching another new anime tonight specifically so I could write about it for today’s post. Oh, don’t worry (as if you were) — I was enjoying it a lot, so I was more than happy to zip through it and see how it concluded.

Kokoro Connect is its name, and it’s an interesting one. It’s also not at all what it makes itself out to be initially, which I can’t help but feel is perhaps not to its benefit. But that aside, it’s worth a watch, and here’s why.

The elevator pitch of Kokoro Connect is as follows: five high school students have escaped their school’s You Must Join A Club rule by establishing the Student Cultural Society, or StuCS for short. Ostensibly, StuCS is responsible for putting together a school newspaper, but in actuality they spend most of their time hanging out in their club room in relative privacy, talking to one another.

Everything is shaken up one morning when two of the group show up visibly shaken by what appeared to be a strange dream they both had at the same time. For half an hour, they believe that they had switched personalities, with their respective consciousnesses swapping places and then shooting back with no explanation. The others are understandably skeptical of this bizarre story… until it happens again while everyone is watching. Thus begins a rather peculiar tale.

That’s how Kokoro Connect sells itself, anyway. The reality is, in fact, much more interesting, as while the whole “body-swapping thing” is cool, it’s a difficult concept to sustain over a long period. Consequently, the supernatural “hook” of Kokoro Connect actually ends up taking a back-seat to the real reason to watch it — its five characters and their growth over the course of the show’s 13 episodes.

Kokoro Connect’s cast is a relatively diverse one, initially appearing to cover a selection of predictable tropes. We have Taichi, who is the relatively “blank slate” male character; Aoki, who is the jocular “best friend” character; Yui, who looks (presumably unintentionally) identical to Asuna from Sword Art Online and is the “quiet girl”; Iori, who is the “loud, immature girl”; and Himeko, who is the “cold, aloof, mature girl”.

As you might expect from modern anime, however, none of these characters are quite what they appear to be at first glance. I shall resist spoiling exactly what’s up with each of them — because there is something “up” with all of them — but suffice to say that they all have plenty of hidden depth that is explored throughout the course of the series. The various supernatural happenings (which eventually extend beyond body-swapping) serve as a trigger for each of them to confront their various issues and discover their “true” selves — sometimes independently, but more often than not with the help of their friends.

Kokoro Connect is, at its core, a show about friendship and the way people can and/or should help each other through hardships. A key theme is whether or not you should always help someone when they’re hurting, or whether or not it would be more beneficial to let them work things out themselves in the long run. A question that is asked explicitly partway through the run, in fact, is whether or not you should hide from your problems (both individual and collective) or face them head-on, knowing full well that doing so will probably hurt both you and those around you.

It’s actually quite Persona-ish in many ways — specifically, it’s a lot like Persona 4, which is about people accepting themselves, including the parts they might not want to acknowledge. The supernatural aspect of Kokoro Connect is significantly toned down compared to Persona 4 and is never really adequately explained — a situation which may well be resolved in the four new episodes set to be released next year — but it doesn’t really matter. If it wasn’t there at all, these would still be interesting characters and interesting stories. (This does, of course, raise the question of why it’s there in the first place, but it does serve as a good catalyst for a number of subplots throughout the show’s run.)

If I had to critique the show specifically, I’d say that a couple of the characters’ “issues” are resolved a little too quickly and I would have liked to see some more time spent exploring them, but to be fair, no-one ever comes out and suggests that they’ve been magically “fixed” — the resolution of said issues tends to be of the “I think I know how I might be able to deal with this now” variety rather than anyone having a “magic bullet” to administer.

This aside, it’s a great watch with some very likeable characters who make up a good ensemble cast. There’s a nice balance of light-hearted comedy alongside the fairly serious issues the story tackles, and it isn’t afraid to depict high school kids like how high school kids actually are rather than the squeaky-clean paragons of virtue they’re sometimes portrayed as. (There’s a particularly toe-curling exchange of “secrets” between Taichi and Himeko at one point, but I’ll spare you the details.) This latter aspect is another thing that the Persona series was particularly good at, and it’s a big draw here, too.

All round, then, if you like character-driven stories that tackle personal issues with just a dash of the supernatural, then you should give it a shot. If you can get Crunchyroll where you are, you can do just that right here.

1009: Some Favourite Characters

One of the things I always find most memorable about any story I experience, be it a book, TV show, movie, anime or game, is the characters. If the characters aren’t interesting, chances are I’m not going to get hooked in. It’s the reason I usually cite as to why I loved the open-world adventuring of Xenoblade Chronicles but find Bethesda role-playing games and most MMOs rather tiresome after a while, but it applies to pretty much any medium.

As such, I would like to present to you a randomly-chosen selection of five of my favourite characters that have popped into my head immediately upon attempting to think of my favourite characters. If that makes sense. I make no apologies for the fact that some or all of these are likely to be big-eyed anime or computer game people.

Grace (Gabriel Knight)

Most people cite Tim Curry’s memorable portrayal of the lewd, womanising bookshop owner in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers as the highlight of that game, but the unsung heroine of the piece is most definitely Grace Nakamura, his long-suffering assistant.

Grace is a realistic female character in that she’s not there to be eye candy, she’s not there to be a useless sidekick hanging on everything the hero does and she actually has a personality. She doesn’t take any shit from Gabriel, and you’d better believe that he regularly gives her shit — his always-rejected advances are a highlight of their interactions, and yet it’s clear that the pair of them do, in fact, care deeply for one another, otherwise Grace would have been out the door long ago.

The exact nature of Grace and Gabriel’s relationship, at least in the first game, is kept deliberately rather ambiguous. Grace often acts as something of a mother figure towards Gabriel, though it’s never quite clear if she actually wants to “tame” him or simply sand down a few of his rough edges. Gabriel is certainly receptive to the things she says and appreciates the hard work she puts in for him — and yet the clear sexual tension between the two of them goes unresolved. Proof that you can have two characters of the opposite sex to one another without them ending up in a predictable love scene.

Angel (Buffy, Angel)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel remain two of my favourite TV shows of all time. David Boreanaz’s brooding vampire Angel appears in both, but really comes into his own when he gets his own series.

It would have been easy for Whedon and the gang to leave Angel as your stereotypical brooding vampire, haunted by his past and trying to make amends for deeds that can never be forgiven. And indeed for many of his appearances early in Buffy, he’s little more than that, providing a convenient “forbidden love” interest for Buffy while allowing the show to explore some traditional vampire themes.

In Angel, however, he cuts loose and we get to see him for who he really is. Sure, he broods and spends a lot of time sitting in the dark — something that is regularly commented upon by his companions — but he also does a fine line in completely deadpan one-liners.

Also, this.

Incidentally, a comment on that YouTube video reads thus: “I always thought Angel was a ponce in the first three season of Buffy…then He moved to L.A. L.A. changes people.”

Damn right.

Toshino Kyouko (Yuru Yuri)

If there’s one reason to watch Yuru Yuri, which I believe I have already extolled the virtues of on several occasions, it is Toshino Kyoko.

Kyoko, as you can probably tell from the image above, does not give a shit what people think of her, and she’s immensely entertaining as a result. She’s often the instigator of the various scrapes the group gets into, and her hyperactivity is a big part of what gives the show so much energy. Part of her appeal comes from the fact that her blonde-haired, blue-eyed appearance sets her up to be “the pretty one” and she then subverts stereotypical expectations completely with her wild and crazy behaviour.

At the same time, though, she’s a dedicated friend and companion, and the whole “possibly unrequited love” thing going on between her and the huggably tsundere student council vice president Ayano (whom I also considered including on this list, but settled on making her my Facebook avatar instead) is another big draw for those who enjoy seeing blushing anime girls simpering at one another and then denying their feelings vehemently. I-It’s not like Ayano wants to spend every waking moment with Kyoko or anything, after all! Idiot!

Seiko (Corpse Party)

Seiko was one of my favourite characters from Corpse Party, a game with an incredibly well-defined and interesting cast all round. The best thing about Seiko, though, was how self-consciously “not girly” she was. She’s open, honest, brash, crass and, a bit like Kyoko, does not give a damn what people think of her. At the same time, she’s cheerful and does her best to keep the people around her in high spirits, even as they are trapped in a horrifying, terrifying situation from which there appears to be no escape.

It becomes clear after only spending a short amount of time with her in the game that she has a number of deep bonds with her friends — particularly with the character Naomi, for whom it’s rather strongly implied that she’s harbouring romantic and/or sexual feelings.

To say too much more about Seiko would probably be to spoil Corpse Party more than I’m willing to, but suffice to say that she’s a definite highlight of the game. And, oh look! Corpse Party is half-price on the PlayStation Store (PSP and Vita) right now. You should go and buy it if you have a Sony handheld, otherwise I’m not sure we can be friends any more.

Polgara (Belgariad, Malloreon)

David Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon series are rather traditional pulp fantasy novels in many ways, but a few aspects of them cause me to remember them fondly — and I’ve even re-read the whole set of books several times, which is not something I normally do.

One of these aspects is Polgara the sorceress. For those unfamiliar with Eddings’ epics, they follow a relatively traditional pattern in which an unassuming young farmhand named Garion gradually gathers a party of various ne’er-do-wells and, through various combinations of circumstances — spoiler! — becomes incredibly powerful, battles against an evil god and wins.

One of Garion’s constant companions throughout the entire series is his “Aunt Pol,” who has been a constant presence in his life since childhood. It transpires that “Pol” is actually Polgara, a four thousand year old sorceress and daughter of Belgarath, sorcerer of legend and he who recovered the mystical artifact The Orb of Aldur from — look, let’s just say he’s Kind of a Big Deal, all right?

The reason Polgara is interesting is not because she’s a kick-ass sorceress, though, it’s the fact that she’s a very well fleshed-out character with a hell of a lot of hidden depth. Garion learning the truth behind her heritage in the Belgariad is just the tip of the iceberg — Eddings went on to publish two additional books known as Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress which explained the ancient magicians’ history in exhaustive detail, giving the entire world in which the two series were set an extremely strong feeling of being a “real” — or at least believable — place. Polgara and Belgarath’s constant presence throughout the world’s history give you something to latch on to as millenia tick by in the pages of the books — and yet both of them remain entertainingly “human” despite their obvious… non-humanness.

____

That was fun. I’ll do this again sometimes soon. I won’t ask what your favourite characters are, because no-one ever replies when I end a blog post with a question. I’ll just say good night and leave it at that!

 

 

1008: Three Wishes

My mind regularly wanders, particularly when I’m trying to get to sleep, and often delves into the territory of rather predictable fantasies. No, not that kind of fantasy — well, not all the time, anyway — but rather the sort of fantasies that tend to provoke conversations in the pub or at the end of a house party. Things like “what superpowers would you like to have?” or “what would you do if you had three wishes?”

I’ve always found the idea of three wishes a fascinating one, ever since I first heard various genie-toting tales from the Arabian Nights and the subsequent primary school “I wish I had three more wishes” jokes. I’ve never quite managed to come up with a definitive answer as to what my three would be. The closest I’ve come is determining that I’d probably have two “practical” ones, one of which is usually ensuring that my body is in perfect physical condition — because, well, if you have the opportunity, you might as well ensure you’re in full working order, right? (And also I’m fed up with having an itchy scalp. TMI? Fuck off.) The second practical one is often ensuring I’m in a situation where I don’t have to worry about money. (This fantasy came up considerably more frequently while I was out of work, as you might expect.)

It’s the third wish I often spend a long time pondering, though. I figure once I’ve done the vaguely responsible thing and wished for things that ensure my affairs are in order, I can cut loose with the third one. (Of course, I could also set the genie free with my third wish, but where’s the fun in that?)

Several recurring possibilities usually enter my mind for this third wish. They probably say something about me. Please do not read too much into them. (Or do. I don’t care. You can do what you want.)

My first possible third wish (you’re following, right?) is the ability to “do magic”. Perhaps as a side-effect of my love of role-playing games, every time I imagine requesting this wish I picture the genie bringing up what essentially amounts to a character creation interface and inviting me to pick my spells. The magic I end up choosing usually ends up being of the elemental variety. Thinking about it, I’m not entirely sure why I pick this, because if there’s one thing that probably isn’t that useful in everyday modern society, it’s elemental magic. Whatever role-playing games might tell us, there are not monsters wandering around outside every town, problems cannot always be solved by setting fire to people who disagree with you and broken machinery cannot be repaired simply by calling down a thunderbolt on it. (In fact, some might say that usually has the opposite effect to repairing it.)

My second possible third wish is that my car would become a VTOL flying vehicle powered by anti-gravity technology which is physically impossible — so far as we know, anyway. Or it might be magic, given that said car doesn’t usually require any fuel. This is a fairly self-explanatory wish usually provoked by the fact I’ve been stuck in a traffic jam at some point during the day and inevitably found myself picturing what it might be like if my car could just rise up off the ground and fly over all the frustrated motorists beneath me. It would be awesome. Don’t say it wouldn’t be, because you would be wrong.

My third possible third wish is the ability to switch bodies with someone — usually a person of the opposite sex who has absolutely nothing to do with my normal life and who possibly exists outside of normal space and time. This is pure curiosity, and come on, who hasn’t wondered about how “the other side” lives? Different times I’ve had this particular fantasy have varied slightly — sometimes the other person simply ceases to exist when my consciousness isn’t present in her; other times she goes about her normal life and simply switches places with me willingly; sometimes she’s an empty vessel (like a robot body) built to hold my consciousness; other times, she is me in a parallel dimension and I am actually both people, I’m simply only aware of one at a time; other times still, the change comes without warning at unexpected moments. (The latter situation, I’ve recently discovered, is the plot hook of the anime Kokoro Connect, so naturally I’ve immediately started watching it.) My motivation for this wish is simply to see what it would be like living another life that is completely different to my own — opposite in almost every respect.

A variation on that third possible wish is to gain the ability to shapeshift. When I picture this wish, my imagination usually puts some surprisingly conservative limitations on my power. I can usually only shapeshift for a limited amount of time, meaning that I can’t just stick in another form — I’ll just change back to my real self after a set period of time has elapsed. I’m usually only limited to changing into other human forms, as well — no turning into, say, a xylophone or a fridge for me. It’s enough to have a similar experience to the “body-swapping” wish, though — I get to try out what it’s like to be someone completely different for a little while.

Obviously, I know all of these will never come true so it’s a completely moot point. But I wonder, if the opportunity did arise, which one I’d actually choose when the time came?